Axion production in the η → ππa decay within SU(3) chiral perturbation theory

Abstract

We study the axion and axion-like particle production from the η → ππa decay within the SU(3) chiral perturbation theory up to the one-loop level. The conventional SU(3) chiral low energy constants are found to be able to reabsorb all the divergences from the chiral loops in the η → ππa decay amplitude, and hence render the amplitude independent of the renormalization scale. The unitarized η → ππa decay amplitudes are constructed to take into account the ππ final-state interactions and also properly reproduce the perturbative results from the chiral perturbation theory. Detailed analyses between the perturbative amplitudes and the unitarized ones are given in the phenomenological discussions. By taking the values of the chiral low energy constants in literature, we predict the Dalitz distributions, the spectra of the ππ and aπ systems, and also the branching ratios of the η → ππa process by varying m_a from 0 to m_η − 2m_π.